The Gates of Creation

“I don’t. I just wondered. Maybe… maybe you could give her to me. From what Jadawin said, she must be very beautiful.”

Vala laughed and said, “That would be one form of torture for her. But it isn’t enough. No, you can’t have her.”

“Then it’s not a deal,” Theotormon said. “You keep her. See how you like being cooped up with her for a year. Besides, I don’t really think you can swim to the spacecraft The water pressure will be too much.”

Vala said, “You stupid selfish slimegut! You’d die yourself rather than let me have anything! Very well, take her then!”

Wolff smiled. He had told Theotormon to bring up Chryseis and so take her mind off him. This business about Chryseis was just irrelevant enough and so Theotormonically selfish that she might be convinced that he was not hiding the truth.

Theotormon clapped his flippers together with glee. Wolff hoped that his joy was all act, since he was not sure that Theotormon might not betray him at the last moment. Theotormon said, “All right. Now, how can we get to the spacecraft?”

“You’ll have to release me first. I’m not going to tell you and then have you take off without me.”

“But if I open the door to your room, you’ll be able to get out ahead of me.”

“Can’t you set the controls so they’ll open the doors by the time you get here?”

Theotormon grunted as if the thought were a new one. “All right Only, you’ll have to come out of the room with absolutely no clothes on. You must both be nude and emptyhanded. I’ll come out of my room weaponless. We’ll both leave at exactly the same time and meet in the corridor that links the two rooms.”

Vala gasped and said, “I thought… ! You mean you knew all the tune how to get here ... so that’s where the other controls are! And I thought the other end of the corridor was a wall.”

“It won’t do you any good to know,” Theotormon said. “You can’t get out until I let you. Oh, yes, strip Chryseis, too. I don’t want you to hide any weapons on her.”

Vala said, “You’re not taking any chances, are you? Perhaps you’re more intelligent than I thought.”

What was she planning? If she did meet him in the middle of the corridor, she would be helpless against Theotormon’s far greater strength. He would attack her the moment she revealed the location of the spacecraft, and she must know that.

The truth was that Wolff, Luvah, and Theotormon knew where the ship was. Theotormon had pretended ignorance only to seem to give her an advantage. She had to be lured out of the room, otherwise she would never come out. Wolff knew his sister. She would die and take Chryseis with her rather than surrender. To her it was inconceivable that a Lord would keep a promise not to harm her. She had good reason. In fact, Wolff himself, though he never thought of himself as a genuine Lord anymore, was not sure he would have kept his word to her. Certainly, he did not intend that Theotormon adhere to his assurances.

Then what did she have in mind?

Theotormon went over the method of conduct with Vala again, pretending that he was not quite sure. Then he deactivated the screen and turned to Wolff and Luvah. Wolff opened the door into the corridor so that he and Luvah could go out ahead of time. As Theotormon had said, the corridor linked the two control rooms. Both control rooms and the hall between were in an enclosed unit of fourteen feet-thick metal alloy. The unit could hold any pressure of water and was resistant even to a direct hit by a hydrogen bomb. The interior wall was coated with a substance which would repel the neutrons of a neutron bomb. Urizen had placed the secret control room in this unit, near the main control room for just such situations as this. Anyone who managed to get into the main room would not know that there was an exit to the corridor until part of the seemingly solid wall of the main control room opened.

The corridor itself, though an emergency convenience, had been furnished as if a reception for Lords were to be held in it. It contained paintings, sculptures, and furniture that a Terrestrial billionaire could not have purchased with all his fortune. A chandelier made from a single carved diamond, weighing half a ton, hung from a huge gold alloy chain. And this was not the most valuable object in the corridor.

Wolff hid behind a davenport covered with the silky chocolate-and-azure hide of an animal. Luvah concealed himself behind the base of a statue. Theotormon made sure that they were ready and returned to the control room to inform Vala that they could now proceed to meet each other as planned. He then pressed the button that operated the door to Vala’s room.

The wall at the other end of the corridor slid upwards. Light poured out of the opening, and Vala stuck her head cautiously around the frame. Theotormon did the same from his door. He stepped out quickly, ready to hurl himself back if she had a weapon. She gave a low laugh and came out of the doorway, her hands held out to show their emptiness. She was naked and magnificent.